
^iis^iuhmett§ ^eghjliihtie. 



THE COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL RELATIONS. 



ARGUMENTS IN BEHALF OF PETITIONS 



FOR AID IN THE PRESEUVATIOX OF THE 



OLD SOUTU MEETING-HOUSE. 



BOSTON: 

ALFRED MUDGE Ss SON, PRINTERS, 

34 School Street. 

1878. 



HSBHchmeii^ ^egishinm 



THE COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL RELATIONS. 



ARGUMENTS IN BEHALP OF PETITIONS 



FOR AID IN THE PRESERVATION OF THE 



OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. 






BOSTON: "'-r.;«r^^ 

ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 
34 School Street. 
1878. 



fl-2, 






N^ls 



^i9t, 



SOO 



CO:N"TE]SrTS. 



Page 

Address of Geo. O. Shattuck, Esq 5 

Letter from Paul A. Cliadbourne,. President of "Williams College . 10 

Letter from Ex-Governor Wm. Claflin 11 

Letter from Hon. George F. Hoar 11 

Letter from Hon. George B. Loring . 12 

Address of Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard College . . 13 

Address of Wendell Phillips 23 

Remarks by Addison Davis 36 

Remarks of Col. Henry Lee 37 

Address of Thomas J. Gargan 40 

Address of Hon. John D. Long 46 



KEMARKS OF GEO. O. SHATTUCK, ESQ. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentle nen, — I appear here in support 
of more than fifty petitions, coming from all parts of the 
commonwealth, from Cape Cod to Berkshire, praying for 
the passage of this resolve. I propose to state very briefly 
what has been done by the public in this behalf, and leave 
the argument to others. 

The Old South was built in 1729, and is older than the 
Old State House, older than Faueuil Hall, and is prob- 
ably the oldest building in the commonwealth prominently 
connected with our history. In 1876 the society which 
owned it decided to sell it. The building was put up at 
auction and sold to be removed. In order to save it from 
destruction, an appeal was made to the people of the com- 
monwealth and the nation. The appeal was answered by 
so many persons, not only in this State but in many other 
States, that the response was thought sufficient to warrant 
a deliberate attempt to save the building. As the society 
could not hold it, or were unwilling to hold it, certain par- 
ties purchased the building, and paid the Old South Society 
in money four hundred thousand dollars. It was then con- 
veyed to Mr. Henry P. Kidder and Mr. Henry Lee, of Bos- 
ton, subject to the claims of the parties who advanced the 
money. Since that time contributions amounting to more 
than two hundred and thirty thousand dollars have been paid 
in, so that the property is now held by Messrs. Kidder and 
Lee subject to a mortgage of two hundred and four thousand 



dollars. The interest has been paid out of a part of the 
contribution. 

The property has not yet been conveyed to the corporation 
which was chartered last winter, because it was not thought 
desirable to convey it to that corporation until it is abso- 
lutely secure. That corporation, as you will remember, 
consists of the Governor, the Mayor of Boston, the President 
of Harvard College, and several other persons named in the 
Act, who are authorized to hold the property for public 
purposes, and to make contracts with the commonwealth for 
the use of it for election sermons and for other public pur- 
poses. 

We come here to ask the commonwealth to contribute 
what will amount to between ten and twelve per cent only 
of the cost. We ask for this with confidence, because it 
is in accordance with the established policy of the common- 
wealth to do whatever is proper, by preserving and erecting 
memorials or by celebrations, to perpetuate the remembrance 
of whatever is great and good in the history of the State. 
The State appropriated and paid seven thousand dollars 
toward Bunker Hill Monument. It paid nearly sixty 
thousand dollars for the centennial celebration in Philadel- 
phia. It paid seventeen thousand dollars to celebrate on a 
single day the centennial anniversary of the battle of Bunker 
Hill. It paid seventy-five hundred dollars last year, or 
appropriated it, for a monument to commemorate the battle 
of Bennington. The State has not only done this itself, but 
it has encouraged taxation by towns for like purposes. In 
1864 it authorized any town or city in the commonwealth to 
build soldiers' monuments, and under this authority hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars have been appropriated. In 
1874 and 1875 it authorized Concord and Laxington and 
many other towns to make large appropriations to celebrate 
the centennial anniversary of the battle of Lexington. 



Mr. Russell. — Didn't the State also make a grant of two 
thousand dollars for the Acton monument ? 

Mr. Shattuck.— Yes, sir. I find in the laws of 1851 that 
the sum of two thousand dollars was appropriated for a monu- 
ment to Capt. Isaac Davis, of Acton, provided the citizens 
of the town raised five hundred dollars for the same purpose. 
The State, from the earliest period in its history, has been 
constantly taking steps, — by publishing records, by en- 
couraging celebrations, by building monuments, — to com- 
memorate, to preserve, and to keep alive in the minds of the 
people the history of Massachusetts, — of which she has a 
right to be proud. The town of Concord, gentlemen, under 
that act of the Legislature, appropriated eleven thousand 
dollars to commemorate the battle of the 19th of April, 
1875. A proportionate tax, distributed over the common- 
wealth, would amount to more than six millions. Yet no 
man questions the wisdom of this outlay. 

We come here, therefore, because the resolve is in 
accordance with the established policy of the commonwealth ; 
and we also come here because the people of the common- 
wealth have by their contributions shown such an interest 
that we are justified in asking the State also to take some in- 
terest in this building. As I have stated, two hundred and 
thirty thousand dollars, and more, have been contributed. 
That money has come, directly and indirectly, from more 
than fifty thousand persons, — some of it, most of it, in laro-e 
contributions, but a lai-ge amount from persons in all parts 
of the commonwealth, and from other States in the Union, 
— from Wisconsin, Iowa, South Carolina, Xew York, 
Missouri. Citizens of many States have contributed for this 
object, and probably every town in the commonwealth has 
done something in support of it. 

We also come here supported by petitions, I think, equal 
in weight and force to any petitions that any measure pro- 



8 

posed in this commonwealth has ever secured. We have 
had, almost without exception, the support of the men of 
influence, as poets, as orators, as men of education, in the 
whole commonwealth. The men to whom the people of 
Massachusetts look as leaders in sentiment, in opinion, have, 
almost to a man, come forward to aid us. Longfellow, 
Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, have all of them written and 
spoken and contributed in this behalf. 

We have hero a petition signed by the president and many 
of the professors of Harvard College ; by the president and 
some of the professors, including the venerable Mark 
Hopkins, of Williams College. We have the president and 
nearly every professor in Amherst College. We have the sig- 
natures — these petitions are worth preserving simply from 
the autographs they bear — of eminent scholars all over the 
State, asking for this contribution. But we have not only this 
class of men ; we have the business men of the community. 
We have a petition from Boston, with the name of ex-Gov- 
ernor Gaston at the head, followed by a list of names of busi- 
ness men, which cannot be surpassed in weight and influence 
in Boston. We have a petition with the name of the venerable 
Peleg Sprague, one of the first of living judges and statesmen. 
In fact, the Legislature of Massachusetts is appealed to by 
the best sentiment and by the best intelligence in the State. 
And I venture to assert that the commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts never has resisted such an appeal, and I hope she will 
not do it now. We have these petitions, I say, from all parts 
of the commonwealth, representing every class in the com- 
munity. We have not attempted to secure large numbers. 
Persons to whom petitions were sent have repeatedly written 
that they could get every voter, or nearly every voter in their 
towns. I could quote letter after letter to that efi'ect ; but 
we have only sent for, and have desired only the signatures 
of representative men. And if you will run over the fifty 



petitions presented here, you will find that they represent 
the wisdom, the intelligence and best sentiment of the com- 
monwealth ; and they present an appeal which I think cannot 
fairly be resisted. 

The amount we ask for is not large. Boston spends almost 
every year $20,000 for the Fourth of July, — the average 
expenditure is more than that. The sum we ask amounts 
only to about two cents and a half on each thousand dollars 
of the taxable property in the State, — no argument, I grant, 
if the object were not a worthy one. 

We ask this aid further, because we need it. In these 
times this two hundred and thirty thousand dollars has not 
been raised without a struggle. The complaint has been 
made that this effort has interfered with other charities, and 
in a measure it has, — because the persons who contribute 
to this are the persons who contrilnite to other charitable 
objects. After the eflbrt that has been made here by these 
persons, — this tremendous effort, — is it not the duty of the 
commonwealth to contribute to some extent to their relief? 
In a cause which has as strong claims upon the public as any 
other, the State ought to relieve its citizens from a portion of 
a burden like this. Although we should hope, by a pro- 
tracted and painful struggle, to save this building without 
aid from the State, we cannot guarantee it. In these times, 
with the resources of many of its friends impaired, no man, 
without the aid of the commonwealth, aid which it can give 
us without inconvenience to any one, can promise that the 
Old South shall be saved. The responsibility, therefore, at 
this time, rests upon the commonwealth. 

She should give this support because no State without a 
history will maintain a high public sentiment ; and no State 
which has a glorious history, and whose citizens are educated 
and understand it and are proud of it, will ever repudiate a 
debt. It is from this feeling of responsibility for maintaining 



10 

au(3 perpetuating a character, — a national character, — that 
national honor springs. And for that reason it is the duty 
of the State, even before it teaches the alphabet, to excite 
and cultivate an interest in her history. And it is on that 
ground that we ask the State to make this contribution. 

But I will take no more of your time, while you wait 
for others. I regret, as you will, the absence of Mr. VV. S. B. 
Hopkins, of Worcester, who intended to appear to speak 
for the petitioners in that part of the State. I received from 
him late last evening a despatch saying that he was engaged 
in the trial of a cause in court, and could not be present. I 
have also a letter from President Chadbourne, of Williams 
College (who is eminent as a legislator and man of business, 
as well as scholar), which I will read. 

Williams College, Feb. 28, 1878. 
H. Burr Crandall, Esq. : — 

3Iy Dear Sir, — I regret exceedingly that I cannot be in Boston on 
the 4th of March, but I hope such a presentation will be made in favor 
of the Old South Church that our Legislature will see that its preser- 
vation is not a mere mtitter of sentiment, but one of duty towards those 
who come after us. It will be well for every citizen of Massachusetts 
to feel that he owns a part of this Eevolutionary monument ; that it is 
one of the buildings belonging to the State, — a building preserved in 
honor of those Avho not only gave us independent existence as a nation, 
but taught us by their deeds what men ought to do when liberty is 
endangered. 

The coming generations can have no more eloquent teacher of the 
duties of true patriotism than the Old South Church, with the historic 
associations that cluster around it. It may be saved to us by private 
liberality, but I cannot believe there is a citizen of the State who 
would not be glad to know that the commonwealth of Massachusetts 
is part owner, at least, of this building that has been so intimately 
connected with the most glorious part of iiis history. I know the 
gentlemen who will appear before the committee will say all that can 
be said in favor of State aid in this work, and I trust our Legislature 
will find words and votes in favor of a good appropriation. 
Very truly yours, 

P. A. CHADBOURNE. 



11 

We have also letters from Gt)veriior Claflin and others, 

which will be read. 

Washington, March 11, 1878. 

Mrs. S. T. Hooper, Boston, Mass.: — 

Dear Madam, — The movement you mention in your note as being 
in progress, for the preservation of the Old South, has my warm in- 
dorsement. I believe that the old commonwealth should not stand 
by idle while the fote of that long link in her historical chain — that 
monument of glorious memories of the past — hangs on such a slen- 
der thread over the pit of oblivion. Private citizens have made a 
noble effort to save the old temple ; let the State second that effort as 
Massachusetts should. She would surely never regret it. 

Believe me, madam, with great regards, yours truly, 

WILLIAM CLAFLIN. 

Senate Chamber, Washington, Feb. 8, 1878. 
Dear Sir, — The application to the State for aid in saving the Old 
South has my warmest sympathy. If Massachusetts lets that vener- 
able monument of her great Revolutionary struggle perish, and the 
spot where John Winthrop lived, and Warren and Adams spoke, be 
devoted to purposes of trade, she should be led, by the same logic, to 
sell the shaft on Bunker Hill to build a granite warehouse. 
I am yours, very respectfully, 

GEORGE F. HOAR. 
Col. Henry Lee. 

House of Representatives, 
Washington, D. C, March 9, 1878. 

My Dear Sir, — 1 have heard with profound interest that a petition 
has been presented to the Massachusetts Legislature, praying for an 
appropriation for the preservation of the Old South Church. I trust 
the memorial of those who have so diligently, patiently, and faithfully 
toiled for this praiseworthy object will be fevorably considered by the 
committee to whom it is referred, and by the Legislature to whom the 
report is to be made. Massachusetts has an honorable record in the 
work of bestowing her bounty on monumental structures, intended to 
mark the spots made sacred by the heroic endeavors of her sous. 
Never has she been called on in a more worthy cause than this, in 
which you and your friends have taken such an interest. It is well to 
adorn the fields where our decisive battles were fought, and to give 
enduring tributes to the heroic dead who have fallen for our couutrv. 
But we should not forget the bold and defiant declarations which gave 



1-2 

those battles their significance, and were laid at the foundation of our 
social and civil structure by the valor of those who fought and fell. 
The eloquence of the Old South had been heard throughout the world 
loug before the shot which was fired at Lexington and Concord, and 
the voices of Adams and Quincy and Warren had taught mankind the 
truth which was made sacred by the blood of Bunker Hill. I trust 
the walls which echoed those voices will be preserved with pious care. 
And I pray that the Old South may stand through all comiog time, to 
remind those who come after us of the lofty thought and heroic en- 
deavor which gave us a country worth laboring for and worth dying 
for, as the abode of a pure and honorable civil organization and of 
social justice and equality. 

Truly yours, 

GEORGE B. LORING. 
Dr. Samuel A. Geeen, Boston. 

Will you allow me, Mr. Chairman, to ask President Charles 
W. Eliot, of Harvard College, to address you? 



ADDEESS OF PRESIDENT ELIOT, OF HARVARD 

COLLEGE. 



Mr. Ohairman and Gentlemen, — Since I last came here 
in this cause, a year ago, great progress has been made in 
the enterprise. Some obstacles have been removed by time 
and events. Before seeking, as they now do, the help of 
the State, the men and women for whom I have the honor to 
speak have at least shown their faith by their works. They 
have given to the enterprise much more in proportion to 
their means than they ask the State to give. 

It seems so inevitable that every son and daughter of Mas- 
sachusetts, who has read its history, should long to have this 
building preserved, that one cannot but feel astonished at 
the presentation of objections to its preservation. Yet, dur- 
ing the past year and a half, I have had occasion to hear 
many objections ; and as I think some of them may be en- 
countered in the Legislature, when discussion arises upon a 
grant of money for the preservation of this building, I should 
like to rehearse some of them, if the committee have no objec- 
tion, and to indicate the manner in which I have endeavored 
to meet them. 

Events have met some of them. I remember, for instance, 
an eager objection which was made to this undertaking iu 
its inception. It was that the city of Boston could not spare 
from its valuation the mercantile buildings that might stand 
upon the site of the old meeting-house ; that no such piece 
of ground in the heart of the city could properly be spared 



14 

from trade and industry. But now the many vacant shops 
and stores within a stone's throw of the Old South effectually 
answer that objection. We have learned that Boston has 
more mercantile buildings than are needed, and that it is not 
the reservation of ground for churches, schools, and parks 
which checks the industry and trade of the city. 

I have often met persons who said, "The price is very ex- 
cessive. It is an outrage that four hundred thousand dollars 
should be paid for that building." Disinterested persons, 
competent to value the site, expressed the opinion that the 
price was not an unreasonable one. at the time it was agreed 
upon. But suppose that the price agreed upon at a moment 
of pressure was eight or ten per cent higher than would 
now be offered, — the money is all applied to a good use ; the 
four hundred thousand dollars go to carry on a valuable 
religious trust, an ancient trust in this commonwealth, in 
whose continuance and prosperity we ought all to rejoice. 
There may be gentlemen who say, "I am not a Calvinist, or 
a Congregationalist ; I am a Roman Catholic, or I am a Bap- 
tist, a Methodist, a Churchman : what interest have I in the 
preservation of the Old South trust?" I think such object- 
ors could learn a lesson from that Massachusetts hero of the 
Revolution, Samuel Adams, with whose labors and achieve- 
ments the Old South is indissolubly connected. At the 
sccoud day's session of the First Continental Congress, a 
question arose as to choice of a chaplain ; Presbyterians, 
Episcopalians, and Congregationalists found themselves face 
to face, and the question was evidently embarrassing. But 
Samuel Adams, the Calvinist and Puritan of the true Old 
South type, arose and said, "I am no bigot; I can hear a 
prayer from a man of piety and virtue, who is at the same 
time a friend to his country." And he moved that an Epis- 
copal clergyman be appointed chaplain ; which was thereupon 
done. The proportions of sects have changed a good deal in 



15 



Massachusetts during the last hundred years, and there are, 
doubtless, many Episcopalians in the present Legislature. 
We ask them to remember these words of Samuel Adams, 
when they come to vote upon the question of paying some- 
thing to preserve the building in which he taught the people 
of Boston to know their rights and to maintain them. 

I have heard persons say, " We cannot care much for 
this building ; for the original pews are not there, — the 
inside is all altered. If it were only the old building un- 
changed, — if we could really sit in the seats where our 
fathers sat, we should have a different feeling about it." 
But why are the original pews, pulpit, and platform not there ? 
It is because they were taken out by the troops of King 
George, — by troops who came to subdue and punish Boston 
and Massachusetts. Those pews gave place to the earthen 
ring of a riding-school. Now, Mr. Chairman, is not this 
reminiscence worth more than the old pews to any Amer- 
ican who has a pride in remembering why the King's troops 
were sent hither, how they fared here, and how they de- 
parted hence? I hope there are some members of the Legis- 
lature of Irish birth who will bear in mind that English 
soldiers stripped that building, and will wish on that account 
to aid in preserving it. 

I have heard the objection that the meeting-house was an 
old and ugly thing which could not last long ; that it would 
be a great deal better if nothing but the spire were kept, or 
if a single stone — some monument — were erected upon 
the vacant lot. Well, gentlemen, we must have the lot 
before we can put upon it the spire or any monument ; and 
the price of $400,000 is the price of the lot, and not of the 
building. For the meeting-house itself only $3,500 were 
paid. That was the whole value of the Old South con- 
sidered as second-hand building materials. 



16 

But there has been a deeper objection urged in my pres- 
ence, by persons whom I had previously supposed to have 
some acquaintance with the history of their country. They 
have said, "Well, after all, what was ever done in 
the Old South? Was much done there? Is there really 
good reason for venerating it ? What are the associations with 
the Old South which are so precious?" Now, that is a 
fundamental question. I should have to read you the history 
of the Revolution to give an effective answer to such a 
doubt. Time will not permit me to do more than barely 
mention five public meetings held in that building, which 
ought to make it sacred to this people so long as its bricks 
can be made to hold together. 

I mention, first, the meeting of the 14th of June, 1768, 
when the ship-of-war "Eomney," sent hither to enforce the 
orders of the Commissioners of Customs, lay in the harbor, 
and excited the indignation of the town by the insolence of its 
officers in impressing sailors, and supporting and harboring 
the commissioners. There had been a commotion in the 
town, with some actual violence, on the 10th, and all but one 
of the commissioners had taken refuge on the "Romney," 
when the people of Boston came together in the Old South 
Church, — Faneuil Hall being to:) small for them, — aud 
were there addressed by James Otis. The objects of the 
meeting were to prevent impressments, and to cause, 
if possible, the removal of the King's ship from the 
harbor. Then and there James Otis uttered these words, 
after expressing the hope that, in time, the grievances of the 
people might be removed : "If not, and we are called on to 
defend our liberties and privileges, I hope and believe we 
shall, one and all, resist even unto blood." What was the 
town, gentlemen, in which these bold words were uttered, in 
the presence of the forces of the King ? It was what we 
should call a village. Its entire population numbered not 



17 

more than sixteen thousand people, while for political pur- 
poses its population did not exceed thirty-five hundred men. 
Yet Otis there spoke of resisting unto lilood the power of 
Great Britain ; and by mere moral force that meeting accom- 
plished one of its objects. It put a stop to impressments. 

Let me next bring to your minds the meeting after the 
Boston massacre. On the 5th of March, 1770, citizens had 
been shot down in our streets by the troops of the King. 
On the 6th a crowded meeting was held in the Old South 
Meeting-house ; and there Samuel Adams filled his fellow- 
townsmen with his own dauntless spirit, and wrought their 
indignation, to the pitch of self-possessed and irresistible 
resolve. Commissioned by that meeting, Samuel Adams 
went into the presence of the governor and the commander 
of the royal troops, and demanded the total and immediate 
removal of all the troops from the town. Incomprehensible 
as it seems to us at this distant time, when we consider the 
relative forces of the two parties to the contest, with no 
other power than that of clear determination, Samuel Adams 
and that unanimous meeting in the Old South succeeded, 
and the two ofiending regiments were withdrawn from the 
outraged town. 

I come next to the tea meeting, or meetings, of Nov. 29th 
and 30th, 1773, when five thousand men of Boston and the 
ueiofhborhood throno^ed the meeting-house, and resolved that 
no duty should be paid upon the tea, and that it should be sent 
back whence it came. On the 30th, you remember, a proc- 
lamation by the governor was sent to the meeting, command- 
ing them "forthwith to disperse and to surcease all further 
illegal proceedings, at their utmost peril." An ample force 
was at his disposal for the execution of this order ; but the 
meeting unanimously resolved that they would not disperse, 
and that they would execute their resolutions at the risk of 
their property and their lives. A fortnight later, on the de- 
2 



IS 

cisive day of Dec. 16th, 1773, seven thousand men waited in 
the Old South from morning till night, to see if the tea-ships 
were to be cleared from the port. After nightfall they 
learned that the governor refused to give a pass for the ships ; 
when Samuel Adams, the moderator, arose and said, "This 
meeting can do nothing more to save the country " ; and at 
that word the tea-party started from the porch of the build- 
ing — the same building which we can look upon to-day, and 
which we want to have our children's children see — and 
went down to Griffin's wharf, and threw the tea into the sea. 
That act made Boston the first object of the King's wrath, 
and Massachusetts the first field of the war of the Revo- 
lution. 

The fourth meeting in the Old South, to which I ask your 
attention, is to my mind the most affecting, magnanimous 
and momentous popular meeting ever held in New Eng- 
land. It was the meeting of June 27th and 28th, 1774, 
when the Boston Port Bill had been four weeks in force. 
I have heard it said, as an objection to this effort to 
preserve the building in which that meeting was held, 
that these are hard times, that everybody is poor, that 
the State must be frugal. I agree, gentlemen, that the 
times are hard ; I admit that this generation has never known 
such hard times. But let us compare them, for an instant, in 
our thought, with the times of June, 1774. 

The port had been closed. No vessels but those of the King 
of Great Britain — the armed vessels of bis Majesty, which 
weighed heavily upon the desolate harbor — could either 
enter or go out. Boston was a little town of not more than 
thirty-five hundred effective men, almost all of whom were 
traders, mechanics, and sailors. Shipping and commerce being 
the principal interests of the inhabitants, their whole liveli- 
hood was threatened. Ruin stared the people in the 
face. Their communications with England, the West Indies, 



19 

Africa, aud all the ports with which they had been accus- 
tomed to trade, were completely cut off. Moreover, there 
were two regiments of King's troops encamped upon the 
Common, — a thing unprecedented and illegal. In the 
preceding April, Lord North had introduced into Par- 
liament, where it had been triumphantly carried without 
delay, "An Act to better regulate the Province of Massachu- 
setts Bay" ; and that act provided, among other things, that 
the council, which had heretofore been elected, should be 
appointed by the Crown or the governor; that judges and 
sheriffs should be appointed by the Crown ; that juries should 
be named by the sheriffs ; that officers and soldiers of the 
King charged with offences against the people should not be 
tried here, but be removed for trial to some other colony or 
to Great Britain. Adams, Hancock, Warren, and all the 
other popular leaders were in instant danger of arrest and 
punishment. The whole town knew these things. They 
had no government, and no organization of any sort except 
a committee of correspondence ; and they were not sure even 
of the sympathy and support of their sister colonies. 

Under these dreadful circumstances the people assembled in 
our Old South Meeting-house. They, gentlemen, were poor 
indeed, and in great tribulation. And what did they do? 
The meeting was invaded by the Tories, in the hope of pro- 
curino- some concessions from the forlorn townsmen, — in the 
hope that a submission might be extorted from this suffering 
people ; and Samuel Adams was obliged to leave the chair, 
and contend in debate with the party proposing submission. 
They were not content with one day's debate ; they had a 
second. Every blandishment was used by the supporters of 
the government ; ever}'- motive for concession was set before 
the meeting ; fear, selfish interest, and the lingering senti- 
ment of loyalty prompted them to submission ; nothing but 
• commercial and industrial ruin was before them if they per- 



20 

sisted in rebellion ; and yet, by an immense majority, they 
refused to censure their committee of correspondence, and 
encouraged them "to continue steadfast in the way of well- 
doing." 

I hope, gentlemen, that it will not be alleged that the 
Massachusetts of to-day is too poor to honor those men, by 
keeping as their best monument the building which wit- 
nessed their self-sacrificing constancy. They acted for pos- 
terity, — for us. Let us preserve the scene of their trial and 
of their triumph. Let us remember, too, what Samuel 
Adams said so truly of himself: " For my part, I have been 
wont to converse with poverty ; and however disagreeable a 
companion she may be thought to be by the affluent and lux- 
urious who never were acquainted with her, I can live hap- 
pily with her the remainder or my days, if I can thereby 
contribute to the redemption of my country." [Applause.] 
Verily, gentlemen, no times are so fit as hard times in which 
to commemorate Samuel Adams. Will not the people count 
it a privilege to make some real sacrifices in his honor? 

There was a fifth great meeting in the Old South. It was 
in 1775, on the fifth of March, the anniversary of the Bos- 
ton massacre, and Joseph Warren was the orator, and Sim- 
uel Adams the moderator. Forty or fifty officers of the 
British army and navy were conspicuously seated on the 
platform and the pulpit stairs, and the meeting-house was 
thronged with people. Warren was to speak of the killing 
and wounding by the King's troops of a few citizens of Bos- 
ton on the night of the 5th of March, 1770. Al- 
though Lexington was still six weeks distant, Boston was 
already occupied, like an enemy's town, by the army of the 
King, and the harbor was in possession of vessels of war ; 
yet Warren took for his subject the evil of standing armies 
in a time of peace ; and he spoke heroically and convincingly, 
— so heroically, so movingly, that not even that band of 



21 

English officers, whose feelings against the rebellious popu- 
lace were exasperated to the highest pitch, ventured to inter- 
rupt him. They all listened in silence until the close, 
though his words were as bold and free us if he himself, the 
moderator, and all the principal men there present, were not 
in immediate danger of arrest and transportation to Eng- 
land, — as if the little province could be expected to cope 
with the most formidable power of the world, — as if he 
knew how his own name was to ring along the centuries. 
" Our country is in danger," he said ; " our enemies are 
numerous and powerful. You are to decide the important 
question on which rests the happiness and liberty of mil- 
lions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. . . . My 
fellow-citizens, I know you want not zeal or fortitude. You 
will maintain your rights, or perish in the generous 
strnsjirle." 

But, perhaps, the sceptical thought occurs to some of you, 
— after all, were these Old South meetings events of real im- 
portance ; they make brave pictures in the imagination, but 
had they at the time any grave significance? Let Lord 
George Germaine and the Eiiglish ministry answer that 
doubt. In March, 1774, Germaine said in Parliament, "Put 
an end to their town meetings," and the ministry of Lord 
North brought in and carried in due course the Act, already 
referred to, " for the better regulating the province of the 
Massachusetts Bay," one provision of which forbade free 
town meetings, except two a year for the choice of officers 
and representatives, and for no other business. No other 
assembling of a town was permitted under this act except by 
written leave of the governor. Such was the contempora- 
neous English estimate of the significance of Massachusetts 
town meetings. Yet Parliament were far from comprehend- 
ing what those meetings proved. They proved nothing less 
than that the people of the province were fit to be free ; they 



22 

demonstrated that the mass of the people were clear-headed, 
self-possessed, resolute, and martial, and that their leaders 
were incorruptible, inflexible, and zealous for liberty. More- 
over, they consolidated opinion, won sympathy, fed enthusi- 
ism, and developed political sense. Now the Old South 
meetings, which I have mentioned, were the most memorable 
meetings of the Eevolutionary period. 

Finally, gentlemen, let me meet an objection which may 
be plausibly expressed somewhat in this wise : " Shall fifty 
thousand hard-earned dollars be wrung from an over-bur- 
dened people for a mere piece of sentiment? " The founda- 
tions of society are sentiments. The ultimate causes of in- 
dustrial and commercial prosperity are the sentiments of 
courage, honor, and good faith. Are not current events 
teaching us how completely all profitable industry and com- 
merce depend upon the moral qualities of men and communi- 
ties? The cause of the existing national distress is not phys- 
ical, but moral. Our ports are open, our highways broad 
and free ; the products of our fields and mines abound ; no 
rumors of wars have terror for us. The cause of our dis- 
tress in the midst of material abundance is what the Old 
South called sinfulness, — the lack of the mere sentiments 
of fortitude, faith, and duty. What this country needs is a 
new flood of righteous sentiments carried into action. There 
is no more efiective public method of fostering for the bene- 
fit of the present and the future the virtues which uphold 
the state than by honorably commemorating conspicuous ex- 
hibitions of these virtues in the past. As we would have 
men hereafter ready to die in defence of our country's flag, 
we gather reverently the flags around which men have in 
our day died, and preserve them with costly care. As all 
states exi)erience crises in which they rely for preservation 
upon that splendid spirit of military honor and devotion 
which has been of infinite service to civilization, the state 



23 

rightly marks memorable battle-fields, and builds monu- 
ments to its soldiers and sailors. So if Massachusetts 
desires to find in later generations the civil courage which 
resists oppression and wrong at the risk of life, lib- 
erty, and fortune, let her hold in honorable remem- 
brance the men who, at her very birth, conspicuously 
illustrated this virtue, and let her contribute to preserve the 
venerable building which witnessed their struggles and their 
victories. And as she is grateful for pious founders, as she 
hopes that righteous and faithful men may not cease, let 
Massachusetts help to save from destruction a famous shriue 
of that sturdy religious faith to which she unquestionably 
owes her own existence, and which has done more for civil 
liberty thau any other religious opinion which the world has 
known. 

The Old South is emphatically a local monument. It 
reminds us that in the glorious conflict for national inde- 
pendence, Boston was the first object of Great Britain's 
wrath, and Massachusetts fields the first to be stained with 
blood. Sure am I that the sentiment of local pride is a 
strong support to any people, to keep them in the way of 
virtue; and that monuments to the great words and deeds 
of ancestors foster that w^holesome pride. Are we not glad 
that Boston and Massachusetts paid the interest on their 
debts in gold all through the civil war? In that strait, local 
pride helped us greatly to do our duty. Do we not wish 
that all the States, and the United States, were as proud as 
Massachusetts ? [Applause.] 

It seems to me that Massachusetts should take part in this 
grateful work for her own credit and honor, — that she may 
pay a fitting tribute to the virtues and achievements of gen- 
erations to which she owes her being. No one can be more 
opposed than I am, as a general rule, to subsidies paid from 
the public treasury to private corporations, whether indus- 



24 

trial, commercial, or educational ; but a contribution to keep 
this venerable building as a public monument cannot be 
likened to these objectionable subsidies. The Old South 
commemorates the birth of the State ; it prolongs the mem- 
ory of the men who founded this precious institution which 
we call " Massachusetts " ; it is a unique memorial of heroic 
times. 

The plain duty of our generation is to save that building, 
that it may stand before posterity as long as its stout old 
Avails will endure. It cannot last forever; and what will 
remain when, centuries hence, it crumbles to decay? The 
hallowed ground will remain, and then another generation 
will gladly take up the work we now begin. They shali 
clear the ground, and set up a stone on a little green in the 
heart of a then ancient city, and on it write names as well 
known to them as to us, — the heroic names of Otis, Warren, 
and Adams I [Applause.] 



ADDRESS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS. 



The times which President Eliot has so eloquently de- 
scribed were hours of great courage. When Sam Adams 
and Warren stood under that old roof, knowing that with a 
little town, behind them, and thirteen sparse colonies, they 
were defying the strongest government and the most obsti- 
nate race in Europe, it was a very brave hour. When they 
set troops in rank against Great Britain, a few years later, it 
was reckless daring. History and poetry have done full 
justice to that element in the character of our fathers, nothing 
more than justice. We can hardly appreciate the courage 
with which a man in ordinary life steps out of the ranks, 
makes the crisis, while no opinion has yet ripened to protect 
him, not knowing whether the mass will rise to that level 
which shall make it safe, — make a revolution instead of a 
mere revolt. But there was a much bolder element in our 
fathers' career than the courage which set an army in the 
field, — than even the courage which faced arrest and impris- 
onment and a trial before a London jury : that, as I think, 
was the daring which rested this government, after the battle 
was gained, on the character of the masses, — on the suffrage 
of every individual man. That was an infinitely higher and 
serener courage. You must remember, Mr. Chairman, no 
State had ever risked it. There never had been a practi- 
cal statesman who advised it. No previous experiment 
threw any light on that untried and desperate venture. 
Greece had her republics : they were narrowed to a race, and 



26 

rested on slaves. Switzerland had her republics : they were 
the republics of families. Holland had her republic : it was 
a repul)lic of land. Our fathers were to cut loose from 
property, from the anchorage of landed estates ; they were 
to risk what no State had ever risked before, what all human 
experience and all statesmanship considered stark madness. 
Jefferson and Sara Adams, representing two leading States, 
maybe supposed to have looked out on their future and con- 
templated cutting loose from all that the world had regarded 
as safe, — property, privileged classes, a muzzled press. It 
was a pathless sea. But they had that serene faith in God, 
that it was safe to trust a man with the rights He gave 
him. 

Now, if yon will go back to 1776 and 1789, and remember 
what the world had been before, you can appreciate the har- 
dihood which faced that dread responsibility, the courage of 
conviction which risked everything, literally everything, 
man holds dear on the soundness of an untried theory. They 
were neither madmen nor dreamers, but careful, conscientious 
statesmen. The stout-hearted courage and serene faith which 
led their Israel into that desert was of a far higher order than 
any which sets an army in the field. 

We stand heie to-day still trying that experiment. We 
stand here with the responsibility of holding up that venture. 
When seven hundred thousand men were added to the ballot 
list of Great Britain by a vote of the House of Commons, 
Lord John Russell leaped to his feet, as the vote was 
announced, saying, "Now, the first interest of every Eng- 
lishman is the education of the masses." That is the con- 
sideration which every American who remembers this grand 
experiment should bear closely on his conscience. 

Human learning, science, common knowledge, does not 
fortify a man against crime. It does not create character. 
That we know by abundant experiment. Learning does not 



27 

make a man moral. You can educate a brain so as to make 
it despise violence, — only to fall more in love with adroit 
cheating. What is called civilization drives away the tiger, 
but breeds the fox. Mere intellectual education only changes 
the character of crime. AVhen you speak of an educated 
mass as the safety of a republic, it is not the education 
of books, mere items of knowledge, mere reading and writ- 
ing. Emerson says, " The Yankee has more brains in his 
hand than other races have in their skulls." Still the Yan- 
kee is correctly represented by a Congress which finds no time 
to legislate, all its hours being consumed in watching the 
tricks and counterworking the dishonesty of its members. 

France has proved, and it has been proved in a variety of 
cases, that this sort of education does not make a State safe. 
It is the education, the training, that results in character. 
It is the education that is mixed up with this much-abused 
element which yon call "sentiment." It is the education 
that is rooted in emotions, — of slow growth, the result of a 
variety, an infinite variety of causes ; the influence of 
books, of example, of a devout love of truth, reverence for 
great men, and sympathy with their unselfish lives ; the 
influence of a living faith, the study of nature, keeping the 
heart fresh by the sight of human suffering and efforts to 
relieve it ; surrendering one's self to the emotions which link 
us to the past and interest us in the future, and thus lift us 
above the narrowness of petty and present cares ; using our- 
selves to remember that there is something better than gain 
and more sacred than life, — yes, and that is to throw life 
away in what foolish men call rash, but wise men see to be 
brave deeds, and which, while it leaves us poor, leaves the 
world better than we found it. 

The profoundest scholar of his day said, " No man is wiser 
for his learning,'" — a sentiment which Burke almost echoed ; 
and Wordsworth said of the dark Napoleon days, 



28 

" A few strong instincts and a few plain rules, 

Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought 
More for mankind, at this unhappy day, 

Than all the pride of intellect and thought." 

It is this — the character of these forty millions in these 
forty States — which is to make this second century of uni- 
versal suffrage safe. It is not the common-school system 
alone, it is not either the higher or the lower level of edu- 
cation : it is that education that results in character, — not in 
mere knowledge. 

Everything, therefore, that goes to make up character is the 
first consideration of a State resting on a republican basis. The 
State should create this influence whenever it can, and save 
and second it wherever it exists. This is one reason — a 
very grave one, it seems to me — why this earnest effort to 
save one of the most suiJ-gestive and most remarkable monu- 
ments of State history deserves State aid. I hold it of ex- 
actly as much importance, and in certain points of view of 
more importance, that the State shall preserve its monuments, 
shall minister to the emotions and sentiment of its people, 
as that it shall provide them with school-books. That 
monument on Boston Common is equal to a ton of school- 
books ; and while it speaks of gratitude to the men who gave 
their lives that our flag might mean justice, it lifts us to their 
level and moulds us to their likeness. Webster remembered 
this when consecrating Bunker Hill Monument. He said its 
object was not an historical record merely, but "that human 
beings are composed not of reason only, but of imagina- 
tion also and sentiment ; and that is neither wasted nor 
misapplied which is appropriated to the purpose of giving 
right direction to sentiments and opening proper springs of 
feeling." 

Allusion has beeu made to the character of different 
States. I hope I shall not, as an individual, exhibit any 



29 

self-conceit when I speak of New England. But I look 
upon New England as the sheet-anchor of these forty States. 
I think in the reverence for antiquity, in the sentiment 
which lies at the root of a New-Englander's character, in 
the value set on old towns and places and families and 
relics, in the fondness for searching out their connection with 
the roots of English ancestry, — in much that distinguishes 
a New-Englander, — there is a large element of that charac- 
ter necessary for the permanence of our institutions. And 
why I value it especially is that, considering the fermenting 
masses, especially in the southern sections of the country, I 
look upon. New England, with its ideas and principles, its 
sense of justice, high level of civilization, tone of honor and 
patriotism, and serene faith, spite of all doubts, in the abso- 
lute necessity of saving that experiment which Jefferson 
launched, — I look npon this New England as the very cen- 
tre, or right wing, of the battle for the permanence of 
republican institutions here. 

I do not value universal suffrage, Mr. Chairman, simply 
as a catch-word, "representation and taxation," simply as a 
logical formula touching the man that pays and his right to 
follow what he pays. Universal suffrage has a broader 
value. God makes it his method, to borrow a French 
word, of securing the " solidarity " of the people, making 
the unity of all classes. When an Englishman looks down 
into a poor man's cradle, if he stoops to that helpless child, 
he does not do it from any anxiety. He knows that there is 
no probability, with the army and the deep-rooted institu- 
tions of his country between him and it, of that child's ever 
being; able to lift its hand against his order or his wealth. 
So if he interferes, he interferes solely from love and pity. 
But when Wall Street looks down into a poor man's cradle. 
Wall Street remembers, with prompt selfishness, that in due 
• time that baby hand will wield the ballot, and unless it has- 



30 

tens to put intelligence on one side and integrity on the other 
of that baby footstep, its own wealth is not safe. I thank 
God for that democracj'' which takes bonds of culture and 
wealth to share their ripest advantages with the humblest 
soul God gives to their keeping ! Social conventions discuss 
the dangers of universal suffrage in cities; timid scholars tell 
their dread of it. True, it is a terrible power. It endangers 
peace and threatens property. But there is something more 
valuable than wealth, there is something more sacred than 
peace. As Humboldt says, "The finest fruit earth offers to 
its Maker is a man " ; and the first object of government is to 
make a man, — to ripen and lift and broaden a man. Trade, 
law, learning, religion, are only the scaffolding whereby to 
build up a man. Therefore we should not shrink from dan- 
gers which beset this theory. We should remember its final 
use and grand tendency, and that God bids us earn safety 
by lifting that rotten, weak, and tempted mass to our own 
level, and only by so doing. This being our duty, every 
influence, even the weakest, that tends to make character 
should be carefully nursed. 

I think that the State, on the broadest consideration of 
duty, is bound to give its citizens something more than the 
knowledge of arithmetic and geography. It does well to 
supplement the common school and the university with that 
monument at Concord. I passed through your Hall as I came 
up. For what has the State set up the bust of Lincoln there ? 
A fortnight ago, I looked in the face of Sam Adams in the 
Kotunda at Washington. What did the State send that statue 
there for? It was only a sentiment! For what did she 
spend ten thousand dollars in setting up a brand-new piece 
of marble commemorating the man who spoke those words 
under the roof of the Old South ? It will take a hundred 
years to make it venerable. It will take one hundred 
years to make that monument on Boston Common venerable. 



31 

You have got the hundred years funded in the Old South, 
which you cannot duplicate, which you cannot create. A 
package was found among the papers of Dean Swift, — that 
old, fierce hater, his soul full of gall, who faced England in 
her maddest hour, and defeated her with his pen, charged 
with a lightning hotter than Junius'. Wrapped up araid his 
choicest treasures was found a lock of hair. " Only a 
woman's hair," was the motto. Deep down in that heart, full 
of strength, fury, and passion, there lay this fountain of sen- 
timent ; undoubtedly it colored and gave strength to all that 
character. When they flung the heart of Wallace ahead in 
the battle, and said, "Lead, as you always have done ! " what 
was the sentiment that made a hundred Scotchmen fall dead 
over it to protect it from capture ? When Nelson, on the 
broad sea, a thousand miles ofl", telegraphed, "England ex- 
pects every man to do his duty," what made every sailor a 
hero ? If you had given him a brand-new flag of yesterday, 
would it have stirred the blood like that which had faced the 
battle and the breeze a thousand years? No, indeed ! Noth- 
ing but a sentiment, — but it made every sailor a Nelson. 

They say the Old South is ugly ! I should be ashamed to 
know whether it is ugly or handsome. Does a man love his 
mother because she is handsome ? Could any man see that 
his mother was ugly ? Must we remodel Sam Adams on a 
Chesterfield pattern? Would you scuttle the " Mayflower'' 
if you found her Dutch in her build ? 

But they say the Old South is not the Old South. Dr. Ellis 
told us how few of the old bricks remained, which was the 
original corner, and which really heard Warren. They say 
the human body changes in seven years. Half a million of 
men gathered in Loudon streets to look at Grant. The hero 
of Appomattox was not there : that body had changed twice ; 
it was only the soul. The soul of the Old South is there, — 
no matter how many or few of the original bricks remain. 



32 

It does not change faster than the human body ; and yet all 
the science in the world could not have prevented London 
from hurrahing for Grant or from being nobler when it had 
done so. Once in his life the most brutal had felt the distant 
and the unseen and done homage to the ideal. 

Nourish and ripen this sentiment, which is one of the great, 
governing parts of character, exactly as you must minister 
to the knowledge of things and words and figures, if you 
mean to educate the people. It is the most important ele- 
ment of that education ; and if we mean to venture on another 
hundred years of this experiment, of resting the State on 
every adult man, his knowledge, his integrity, his self- 
control, you must educate the whole man. We have no 
right to throw this portion away, even if it were but a slight 
contribution. But this is a large and a generous one. Wh}^ 
did the newly levied troops, when they passed by Fanenil 
Hall and the Old South, break out into shouts? No officer 
ordered them. It was not done by the tap of the drum. 
What was it in their hearts, that, before they left the old 
city to go down and carry justice to the Gulf, what was it 
that made them break out into shouts? It was a something 
too valuable to be lost. This is no time to dispense with 
any of that element. 

I can remember when I did not fimcy the flag, — when to 
me it represented something to which I could not swear alle- 
giance ; and I went abroad with some disgust towards the 
Stars and Stripes, for I knew^ the slave saw in it only the 
guaranty of his bondage. But I remember one day when I 
was in the harbor of Genoa, the " Ohio " anchored there, cov- 
ered with bunting to the very topmast. The Stars and Stripes 
floated gay on the breeze, and five thousand Italians in boats, 
covered with gala symbols, full of frolic, sailed around the 
vessel, shouting. 1 found I could not keep my heart dovvn ; 
I had to remember and rejoice that I was an American. 



33 

That is the feeling which the Old South ministers to, and 
that is what we come here and ask you to help. The people 
have shown by their large contributions and incessant labor 
in this behalf that it is no transient, no local feeling ; that it 
covers the State, permeates all classes, thrills every heart. 
Even if it should not succeed, this very effort of devoted 
women to rescue these walls from destruction, appealing to 
the best elements of Massachusetts character, — this very 
effort, if it should fail, would do more, perhaps, than ten 
common years to educate Massachusetts. It has been in 
itself an exceeding great reward, if it ends to-day. The 
canvass of Fremont was said, with great justice, to have been 
the normal school of the American people ; and so if the old 
walls should fall, ingulfed in the maelstrom of trade, history 
will tell not only the faith and courage of the lathers, but 
also the loving strujjsfle of the children to save that sacred 
roof, that it might teach posterity as profound a faith and 
stir as loving and devoted patriotism as it has done hitherto. 

I have no sympathy with the feeling that we are too 
poor. When one of this type remonstrated against the 
ointment poured over him, saying, " Why was it not sold 
and the money given to the poor?" the broader wisdom, 
the generous philosophy of the great Master covered all our 
nature when he answered, "The poor ye have always with 
you." Ordinary cares may be attended to at ordinary 
moments by ordinary methods, but on grand occasions you 
must waive these petty rules. You must rise to the level 
where God calls you, and he calls us to-day to save the 
monuments to make our children brave and wise. 

We crowd our streets with monuments, — what do we 
mean? Why do you set Everett here, and Sumner there, 
and Lincoln elsewhere, and Mann in front of your State 
House ? They are there as mementoes of great lives, the real 
wealth of the commonwealth. Is not Massachusetts richer 
3 



34 

for the meinoiy of these men? Is not Massachusetts richer 
that Sam Adams lived here, that Harry Vane walked these 
streets, that where the Old South stands Sewall, in the 
majesty of his repentance, gave to magistrates the noblest 
example that has ever been set the world over? No hour in 
history has risen to a higher level. Is not that a lesson 
broad, deep, profound, permanent, — to teach a people 
the grandeur of humility, of integrity of purpose, of 
whiteness of soul ? These are the treasures that enrich 
Massachusetts, These are the things we hope you will 
save, and in saving them, save the very foundation 
and source of all good that is to come to the country. 
I may exaggerate the importance of New England, but I look 
elsewhere and I see wild projects, unbridled ambition, dissen- 
sions of race, quarrels between classes, ambition for new 
territory, — a hundred causes that threaten the permanence of 
this republic. Hardly any man can venture to hope, unless 
by gieat blessing, that a hundred years hence one flag will 
cover this continent. We are breaking into pieces, into 
half a dozen pieces, from a variety of causes. There is 
nothing that can hold us together but the sentiment of one 
country, one flag. How hard to ripen this sentiment ! I 
have faith that a hundred years hence freedom will be the 
law from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but I do not know 
whether one flag will cover the continent. 

It is only as far as I have faith to believe that the common 
school and the municipal institutions ; the character of New 
England, — the seed and type of everything that is valuable 
in public life, — will spread over the continent, to the Gulf 
and to the West, — it is only in that faith that I believe these 
great States can hold together ; and in order to that we must 
emphasize and intensify the New England character. I stood 
in this very hall fifteen years ago, with half a dozen others, 
and argued for the preservation of the Hancock House (I wish 



35 

it stood there to-day !), one of the half-dozen relics that gave 
Boston a past. We got a vote through both Houses, if I 
recollect right. You would like it to-day. We should not 
be oblio-ed to climb five stories into this attic if you had that 
Hancock House to spread the offices of the State House into. 
It was oflfered to you cheaply in .the matter of money, but 
you had not the sentiment to save it. I remember an 
Arkansas slaveholder who had never seen anything older 
than twenty-five years, standing with white lips and trembling 
knees on the door-step of that house ; and when 1 said to him, 
in answer to his question, "Did the man who signed the 
Declaration really touch that door-latch?" "Yes, and his 
body lay in state above it," he sat down upon the step and 
said, "I feel very strangely ; I never felt so before." It was 
the first stirring of a poetic sentiment working in the mind 
of a rude nature. Let it ripen, and his hand would be 
clasped with that of Boston so tightly that no theory of 
white race or black race could break the union. 

Why throw away any means to make men nobler, to bind 
citizens into closer union and stir them to broader patriotism. 
Johnson said, "Whatever makes the past, the distant, or the 
future predominate over the present advances us in the dig- 
nity of thinking beings." 

Save everything that tends to that. Search out and 
gather up all that so educates the soul. When the people 
toil and labor to prepare such teachers, intervene and make 
the work easier. You circumnavigate the globe to find men 
to teach skill. You tempt Agassiz from his birthplace to 
question Nature for her secrets. Save, sacrifice liberally to 
save, the teachers God has put in our streets, teachers f 
secrets better than any Nature can show,— of law, order, 
justice, freedom, brotherhood, self-sacrifice, the nobleness of 
that life which serves man, and the happiness of his death 
who leaves the world better for his having lived. Genius 



36 

can mould no marble so speaking as the spot where a brave 
man stood or the scene where he labored. 

Mr. Addison Davis, of Gloucester, then addressed the 
committee in opposition to the petition, taking the ground 
that the Old South was a hideous structure, otfensive to 
taste, and that the site was needed for stores, Avhich would 
add largely to the taxable property of the city. He sug- 
gested that a handsome building could be erected there, 
upon the front of which might be placed an attractive model 
of the old church, which would answer every purpose of the 
present structure as a monument. 



REMARKS OF COL. HENRY LEE. 



The argument of the gentleman who has just spoken 
would apply as well to Westminster Abbey, to the temples 
of Pffistum, and to the Pyramids of Egypt. 

Fancy Westminster Abbey razed to the ground, and an ele- 
gant block of warehouses built upon its site, with a little 
model of the old abbey placed in a niche in the wall. 

You look up at the little martin box of a model, and ask, 
" Is that Westminster Abbey?" " Yes, that is Westminster 
Abbey; we were obliged to take it down, as business in- 
creased, and room was needed for warehouses. That model 
answers all purposes. You can walk round it, peer into it, 
you have the whole thing at a glance, and you get rid of the 
shabby old building which was an eyesore and cnmbered the 
ground." I could not so project my imagination as to make 
a petty, insignificant model awaken the associations which 
cluster about a time-hallowed building. 

The gentleman says it is a matter of taste, and about taste 
there is no disputing. For myself I never come in sight of 
the Old South, with its graceful spire, that I do not feel a 
sense of gratification and delight. I love to stand within its 
walls and find myself beneath its roof. The gentleman said 
it was a matter of sentiment, which is true, and just so far 
as people undervalue sentiment, just so far they undervalue 
the preservation of the Old South. He jeered at those who 
would have saved the Paddock elms : I am one of those 
" citizens of a by-gone age " who desired to save them. I 



38 

wanted to save the Hancock House. It would have been 
cheap if the State had bought it at five times its price. Mr. 
Phillips has well described the value, to strangers who visit 
our old town, of these historic relics ; and, the newer the 
States from which they come, the more they value them. 

The gentleman speaks of the wealthy merchants who 
signed our petition. If more of the wealthy merchants were 
with us, no petition would have been brought to the State 
House, — the building would have been paid for long ago. 

There are the saviors of the Old South ! It is not men 
who have saved the Old South ; these ladies have saved it. 

There is one thing that has not been mentioned, that 
this is the most historic spot on this peninsula, for it 
began with the beginning of our history. That portion 
of the history of the Old South that pertains to the Revolu- 
tionary period is well known, and has been most eloquently 
expatiated upon this morning here ; but it is not so univer- 
sally known that this spot was selected by John Winthrop 
for his home. The founder of our colony sat down there by 
the side of the great spring, and there he dwelt for nineteen 
years of his life in this colony. His house, built upon this 
spot, was for many years not only his home, but it was the 
focus of the colony ; it was the place of all meetings, reli- 
gious and political, of the colonists. There is no spot on this 
peninsula so associated with the first generation of Puritans 
as this spot. It is associated with Winthrop, Dudley, Brad- 
street, Vane, Peters, Cotton, and Wilson, — with all the men 
distinguished at that time, and foremost in the conduct of the 
State ; and it is not extravagant to say, that of all that gen- 
eration of men, the most distinguished was John Winthrop. 
He was the founder of our Puritan commonwealth, and this 
is the spot on which he lived. 

The Puritans were men of sentiment. If they had not 
been, they would have remained in England, and we should 



•69 

not have been here to day. They did not leave their pleas- 
ant homes and venture across the seas into a howling wilder- 
ness, " where was nothing but wild beasts and l)east-like 
men," to make money. They did not come here as a mat- 
ter of opinion, but as a matter of sentiment, "seeing that the 
Church had no place to fly into but the wilderness," and 
this sentiment sustained them through all their trials, and 
inspired them with wisdom and courage. 

Of their leader, the historian of New England says : 
" Amono^ the millions of living men descended from those 
whom he ruled, there is not one who does not — through 
efficient influences transmitted in society and in thought along 
the intervening: (fenerations — owe much of what is best 
within him, and in the circumstances about him, to the be- 
nevolent and courageous wisdom of John Winthrop." Now 
the State has selected, from among her long line of eminent 
citizens, for these two hundred and fifty years, two men, as 
her representatives, and has placed their statues in the 
Capitol at Washington : one, John Winthrop, the founder of 
her liberties ; the other, Sam Adams, the preserver of those 
liberties. What mockery would it be to destroy a building 
which was the forum of the one, and marks the homestead of 
the other, indissolubly connected with the lives of both these 
chosen representatives of our State. 

While we raise columns, and build memorial halls, to the 
heroes of to-day, shall we destroy the few remaining monu- 
ments of our fathers' piety and patriotism? 

A monument should remind one of the fact to be remem- 
bered ; and this time-worn, weather-stained old building, — 
this last of our Puritan meeting-houses, — built upon the spot 
made histoiical as the home of our first governor, and by a 
series of associations, religious, political and personal, all 
through our history, recalls, as no new monument could 
recall, these precious memories. 



ADDRESS OF THOMAS J, GARGAN. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee, — I re- 
member reading, when at school, that history was philosophy, 
teaching by example ; and not alone from books were we to 
learn the story of the past, but from relics, old monuments, 
inscriptions, marbles, and even the ruins of ancient build- 
ings. We are here to-day assembled before a committee of 
the Legislature of Massachusetts, asking them to do what? 
To help us teach the coming generations of Massachusetts 
the story of our past. Is it by books alone that we are to 
learn our history? I confess, Mr. Chairman, I have a 
weakness, if you choose to call it so, for relics. I was edu- 
cated in a faith that taught me to venerate them, and I 
believe that the teachers of Christianity have been aided 
almost as much by sculpture, painting, and the grand old 
Gothic church architecture of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries as by the cursory reading of books. You may call 
this sentiment. What is sentiment in its best sense? Mr. 
Phillips has told you in such eloquent language that I need 
not repeat. I call it a part of the education of man. 

What does the American citizen do — I care not if he bo 
a representative of the cultured and the wealthy class, or 
whether he be one of the nouveaux riches who has made his 
fortune in petroleum or in a silver bonanza — when the 
desire possesses him to cultivate his mJnd ? He goes abroad. 
To Where does he turn his footsteps ? To some of the mod- 
ern buildings in London or Paris? Not at all. If he visits 
London, does he seek the Thames embankment? No, his 



41 

first walk is to Temple Bar. If he is a cultured man, he 
desires to visit the places where Dr. Johnson once trod, to 
pay homage to the little house where he took a meal. If he 
is of a religious turn of mind, he goes to Westminster Abbey, 
and what for? Not for its architectural beauties alone, but 
for the historic associations that make it the link between 
his memory and the illustrious dead it shelters. If he goes 
to Paris or to Rome, if religiously inclined, he visits the 
cathedrals and churches. If he goes to the Holy Land, he 
visits the spot where, two thousand years ago, " for the eter- 
nal instruction of the generations," to quote the words of 
Victor Hugo, "the human law nailed the divine." And what 
is he taught there? There comes to him from the very sight 
of that spot the whole history of Christianity. He traces 
the birth of the Saviour and the thirty-three years of his 
life, his crucifixion, and the sublime spectacle, in that awful 
moment when all mankind had deserted him, of two faithful 
women kneeling at the foot of the cross. Is not this senti- 
ment? Is it not sentiment that has made nations? If he 
is a classical scholar, does he not visit the ruins of ancient 
Eome and of Greece ? 

It is sentiment which has erected monuments, and which 
has helped to elevate the world for more than two thousand 
years ; and yet we are told, here in Massachusetts, that, as a 
commonwealth, we ought not to do anything to preserve one 
of the few monuments within its limits ! Why, the other 
day I walked through the streets of New York, and as I 
came up Astor Place I saw there the Cooper Institute, — a 
modern monument, indeed, but yet it commands attention, 
and the passer-by would ask its history. Farther up they 
have erected the arm of Bartholdy's statue of Liberty which 
is to be placed at the entrance of New York Harbor. 
Does not that command attention? Does it not lead the 
sight-seer to ask its history ? And what do we propose to do 



4:2 

here in Boston ? We propose to remove one of the few 
monuments that call strangers to our city, and help to 
impress upon the rising generation the history of the 
struorgle which made us a nation. If the Eno:lishman 
goes to the House of Parliament, does he not like to 
sit in the place where Pitt once sat? If he is a man of 
Irish blood or birth, does he not turn his steps to College 
Green, and there enter the old Irish House of Parliament, 
and does he not recall that memorable nig-ht of the struof^Ie 
for the Union, and try to place Grattan, Flood, and all the 
other names that have been memorable in its history? If an 
American visits Washington, is it the site of the modern 
Capitol that most arouses his interest? Does he not take the 
steamer and make the pilgrimage to Mount Vernon, and look 
upon — what? Not a modern building, but the dwelling- 
place of George Washington. Does he not go through every 
room of that old house? Is not every relic there displayed 
sacred to him, — the old coat which Washington Avore, his 
old hat, even his handkerchief? Every cherished memento 
of the man who was called the "Father of his Country" is to 
the American an object of loving reverence. If he comes 
north to Philadelphia, does he not enter Independence Hall ? 
With what emotion he recalls the fact that there sat John 
Hancock, the first president of the Continental Congress ! 
Does he not also call to mind that John Adams stood up 
there and moved that George Washington be commander-in- 
chief of the forces raised or to be raised for the defence of 
American liberty? Does he not remember that these walls 
are eloquent with the historic names of the sons of Massa- 
chusetts? When a man comes here from the West we take 
him to Faneuil Hall ; and for what? To show him the build- 
ing? Has it not already been desecrated by our city gov- 
ernment, in making a market of its lower story? Do we take 
him to see the building? No ; but because of the associations 



43 

connected vvith that hall. We take him to Bunker Hill, and 
we take him to the Old South. 

But we are told that this is a ntilitarian age, that we must 
have nothing to do with sentiment, and that the people of 
Massachusetts cannot afford to-day to preserve this monu- 
ment ; that we have already too much property exempt from 
taxation, and that the burdens are too heavy for the tax- 
payer. I remember Mr. Burke, in his "Thoughts on the 
French Kevolution," said, " The nurse of manly sentiment is 
gone, and the age of chivalry has been superseded by that 
of sophisters and calculators." Shall it be said of Massa- 
chusetts torday that patriotism has fled from her limits, and 
that we are living in an " age of calculators " ? But even 
supposing that — take it upon that basis — Massachusetts has 
about one thirteenth of all the wealth of the Union, two 
thousand millions of dollars. It does not require remarkable 
powers of calculation to find what percentage of two thou- 
sand millions the mere trifle of fifty thousand dollars would 
be to the State. The burden which is to be inflicted is a 
tax of fifty thousand dollars in a commonwealth worth more 
than two thousand millions of dollars, with a population of 
one million six hundred thousand souls. 

But then it is said we ought not to establish this precedent. 
Well, if we take it upon the basis of education, have we not 
already voted one hundred thousand dollars to Prof. Agassiz's 
Museum at Harvard ? Have we not aided Amherst College ? 
Have we not given to the Agricultural College large sums of 
money from the State treasury? Have we not sent to 
Washington the statues of Winthrop and Adams, for what 
purpose? To remind the coming generations of the Union 
what great things have been achieved by the sons of Massa- 
chusetts. And yet when the stranger or the citizen enters 
the Capitol and sees the statues of Gov. Winthrop and Sam 
Adams, of Massachusetts, and says, "Tell us something of 



44 

their history," and he is told of the memorable scenes in the 
Old South Church, and asks, "Does that church now stand?" 
and the reply comes, "Oh, no ; it was pulled down. Massa- 
chusetts was so poor she could notaiford to preserve that build- 
ing which made their names historic, but she has sent here to 
the Capitol, at an expense of twenty thousand dollars, two 
marble effigies." What a commentary that will be upon 
Massachusetts, if it is the story we shall be obliged to tell ! 

Allusion has been made to five memorable meetings at the 
Old South. Why, sir, there was another meeting in the Old 
South Church, or rather, in front of it, to which allusion has 
not been made here ; and I may be pardoned if I call the 
gentleman's (Mr. Davis) attention to it. We remember, 
in 1861 and 1862, when the stability of this government was 
threatened, and the strong arm of every man was needed to 
sustain the Union ; after we had met disaster in the field and 
the energies of the people were flagging, patriotism seemed 
to languish ; it became necessary for the men of Massachu- 
setts again to raise their eloquent voice, — and you, sir (turn- 
ing to Mr. Phillips), I think, were one of them, — to once 
more prompt her sons to maintain the Union of their fathers. 
And where was thought the most appropriate place for that 
meeting? In front of the Old South Church, in Boston, with 
all its historic memories ; and I believe that this meet- 
ing helped to send many thousand men to the army to pre- 
serve that Union which made your property, sir (turning to 
Mr. Davis), and the property of every tax-payer in Boston, 
worth anything. Were it not, sir, that those men went to 
the field and sustained the government, where would have 
been all property ? 

I trust, sir, that we who have done so much in the past 
do not propose to say that we will not give fifty thousand 
dollars for the purpose of education. Sentiment I Why, 
what do we see below in the Doric Hall ? We see there pre- 



45 

served all the flags of the Massachusetts regiments, — not 
bright and beautiful, but torn and begrimed by smoke of 
many battles. What do they recall to our minds ? To me, 
all the battles of the war. I can there read the inscriptions, 
"Hanover Court House," "Seven Pines," " Chickahominy," 
" Malvern," " Chancellorsville," "Petersburg," " Five Forks," 
"Kichraond"; and, wherever a battle was fought or blood 
was shed, I see, there, that the men of Massachusetts, regard- 
less of race, color, or creed, shed their blood in defence of 
the American Union. Do you desire to see those " ugly " 
flafirs taken from this buildino; ? The same sentiment which 
would prompt a resolution to take them from out this capi- 
tol strikes to-day at the Old South. 

I trust, gentlemen, that you will not be moved by the 
argument that we are too poor to-day. We are not poor, — 
we are not poor in the sense that we cannot aiford to appro- 
priate fifty thousand dollars for this object ; and when the 
young man, or the stranger within our gates, walks down 
Washington Street, in Boston, and has his eyes attracted by 
that inscription, — and I would take from it no word and 
no letter, — and asks the story of the "Old South Church," 
and he is told it by a citizen of Boston, does it not make him 
feel, if he comes from an interior town of New England, 
that he is a part of New England, and that this is a part of 
the history of his common country? I have faith, gentle- 
men, in your committee, that you will vote here to recom- 
mend this appropriation. It will be fifty thousand dollars 
economically invested as an educational fund. If you desire 
to preserve our government, if you desire to perpetuate 
free institutions, it will be the best grant that has been 
recommended to the Legislature of Massachusetts in many 
years. 



FROM AN ADDRESS BY THE HON. JOHN D. LONG, 

IK THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, 
Junk 18, 1877, 



It is not for me to plead a cause which has already com- 
manded and will to-day again command the ripest eloquence 
of America. But I would say a word for those, of whom I 
was once one, and because I was once one of them, the lads 
who in a thousand rural towns have never seen this meeting- 
house, or Bunker Hill, or Faneuil Hall, but who, reading of 
all these with glowing hearts, are having instilled into them — 
future sovereigns, as they are, of the Republic — the very 
fundamentals of whatsoever patriotism they will hereafter 
bring to the discharge of their political duties. 1 remember 
— a memory which I presume to utter, only because I believe 
it is identical with the memory of many another here — I re- 
member my father's fireside in a Maine village, the winter 
hearth, the kindling page in one of Pierrepont's Readers, or 
Parley's Tales ; and I know that then and there it was that, if 
I am an American, I became one ; that if I have any love of 
country in me, then and there I got it. A little later, an eager 
pilgrim to Boston , this and its kindred monuments of the glory 
of the past were the shrines which, with no gush or efi'usion of 
sentiment to others, but with the very convictions of a country 
school-boy's deepest, secret heart, I sought at once, and 
kneeling at them had the faith of the loyalty 1 bear my country 
confirmed as no abstraction, no precept could have confirmed 
it. This roof belongs to the ingenuous youth, who are the 
germ of the future of American citizenship, and none shall 



47 

rob them of the inspiration of its echoes, its spirit, its pres- 
ence. If you want hereafter generations of patriots, preserve 
it. You remember the story of the Swiss boy who, four 
hundred years ago, ran from the battle-field of Morat, on 
which hung the fate of his country, to the city of Freyburg, 
there panted the news of victory, and then, overcome by the 
exertion, fell dead. The legend is that he carried in his 
hand a little green switch of a linden-tree, and that they 
planted it above him, where it grew out of his very heart like 
the root that vEneas tore from the grave of Polydorus. 
Certainly travellers tell us how sacredly that linden has now 
for centuries been kept, its branches propped on columns of 
stone and bound around with clamps of iron, with seats under 
it where the burghers may sit beneath its broad benediction. 
Would Switzerland be Switzerland without the sentiment 
that thus preserved it, and is itself preserved by it ? For 
these influences interact; and, if you destroy the monuments 
around which the sentiment of patriotism loves to cling, you 
destroy that sentiment as well. 

I urge, too, the just claim of time itself, — which, with 
Yankee craft, we are apt to cry robs us, while we rob it, — 
and of the thousand years that are next to come. The 
tender future reaches out its hands to take into them this 
building, sacred to God and fatherland. It pleads for at 
least one temple in America which shall not be snatched 
away the moment it does not pay six per cent in cash upon 
its market value ; for at least one edifice around which it 
may let its graceful ivies cling and twine, the very ugliness 
of which it may mellow and adorn with the soft and plastic 
fingers of its centuries ; which it may show our descendants 
it can make as hallowedly beautiful in a decay like that of an 
aged saint, as have been made the churches of old England ; 
in which its children, still "sweet singers in Israel," long 
years hence may sing praises to God and the fathers, and 



48 

wake the responsive echoes of our children's songs ; and in 
which it may hide its inheritance of rich, historic glooms and 
shadows, evoking from them now and then heroic ghosts of 
Winthrop, and Vane, and Sewall, and Quincy, and Warren, 
and Adams, and Otis, ay, and of brave men and women of 
later date, whose names I need not utter, because your 
hearts would anticijjate my lips ; and evoking, too, the 
voices of the patriot merchant and mechanic of the colon}' to 
strike key-notes for the merchant and mechanic of the Re- 
public whenever its great crises come. 



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